Abstract:
Certain industries-tobacco, automobiles, consumer products and more
recently, pharmaceuticals-seem to experience a curious business cycle:
The exposure of human or environmental damage caused by their products
or policies is followed by public outcry and government intervention,
which in turn compels good corporate citizenship as a necessity of
survival and competition. In Mr. Monks's view, this cycle time could
be compressed, putting the mid-point costs of litigation and
image-rebuilding back into the bottom line, if global institutional
investors exercised their responsibility to motivate sustainable
profit growth based on respect for individuals and the environment.